


Whispers

by spicyjeans



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ASMR, Comedy, Dark Comedy, Horror, M/M, Social Media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 08:34:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17505206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyjeans/pseuds/spicyjeans
Summary: Lance is given an assignment in his English class in which he must write a popular voice essay meant to entertain readers. He is told to choose a unique and creative topic and to use his writing talents to express his frustration on any topic of his choice. He immediately knows what to do: he will finally be able to eloquently and legitimately express his sheer hatred of ASMR. With the allowance to be as dramatic and as upset as he desires, and he knows that this is, at last, his time to shine.





	Whispers

Lance Mcclain

Mr. Graworth

AP English 11 

Whispers

_Ss….p...p..ss..t...d...f..t..s...p...k...ss...ss._ I am sitting at my desk in math class, trying to remember the quadratic formula. _K...ss…t...ss….p...b...ss._ Furrowing my brows, I stare lasers into the assignment in front of me in a useless effort to focus. _Ss...b...t...p….d._ I tighten my grip around my pen, my teeth clenching as I try not to snap. The boy sitting next to me has been whispering to himself for the entirety of the class, and the vile sounds of his wet mouth are ruthlessly penetrating my ears. _Keith._ I know that he is just whispering and that it shouldn’t bother me the way it does, but the smacking of his lips and the hiss of his whisper are like the ASMR experience from hell. I promise myself that I will not say anything, that I will not snap or embarrass him for something that he technically has every right to be doing. But when the proceeding hiss hits my ears like an auditory whip to my back, it takes all of the strength in my body to refrain from going over the edge.

In a time when slime-poking, smoothie-drinking, lip-smacking content is at an all-time high on social media, one could easily be tempted into thinking that just about anybody can be found secretly savoring the satisfying sounds that make up the sensation that has been dubbed ASMR. ASMR, which stands for autonomous sensory meridian response, is said to be characterized by a tingling or static-like response on the skin to auditory sounds. Due to a recent popularization on social media, a wave of “satisfying” videos have hit the internet and can be found just about anywhere. These videos can be made up of people whispering softly, people loudly crunching their salads or slurping their noodles, or people poking slime or tapping hard objects with long nails, all directly into a microphone. For some reason, the internet seems to love it. I, however, despise it. The sounds do what they are meant to, I suppose. When I hear a young Russian woman whispering into her microphone and loudly opening and closing her mouth, the sound of her saliva and the pop of her consonants sends a literal shiver down my spine. The only issue is that my shiver is one of absolute disgust. How people can genuinely enjoy this supposedly “satisfying” trend, I fail to understand. No, I do not enjoy ASMR. It makes me genuinely angry.

Now, the reader might be thinking, “Well, dear author, why do you watch these videos if they ignite such relentless anger inside of you? Why do you not simply choose to ignore them and move on with your day?” I will now, however, so kindly enlighten the reader as to why his suggestion is one that I absolutely cannot seem to follow.

Allow me to direct a scene in your mind’s eye. I, tired and frustrated, fall back into my bed, releasing a heavy sigh of relief that my long day at school is finally over. My shoulders are ridden with tension from my heavy backpack and my hands are cold and cramping from writing all day. I have been waiting for this moment, longing for the warmth of my bed and for the moment when I am finally once again left alone to my thoughts. Picking up my phone, I log into Twitter and begin scrolling through my timeline, curious as to what the people of the internet think about the latest scandal. I don’t yet know what the scandal may be, but there always seems to be one, and I find enjoyment in keeping up to date. However, there is no scandal. There are no politics, there are no celebrity deaths, there are no up-and-coming rappers desperately attempting to plug their music in the replies of famous tweets. No, there is only ASMR.

My three minutes of peace are suddenly brought to a halting stop as my auditory sensors are ruthlessly invaded by saliva-smacking, nail-tapping, soup-slurping racket. I close the app with haste. I then open Snapchat, hoping to see some cute dogs or some wacky new hairstyles to lighten my mood. I find what I seek, and I am once again happy. As I look at the last dog and swipe with sheer naivety onto the next story, my eyes widen and my small smile quickly fades into a scowl. Here, just before my eyes, just as I thought I was safe, a woman with long pink nails and bright blue eyes smiles at me as she taps a can of soda loudly. She leans into the microphone and opens her mouth slowly. I hear every bit of saliva, every movement of her tongue. “Hello,” she greets her audience in a whisper. She smiles once again, and I feel her eyes mocking me silently through the screen. You thought you could escape, they say to me. I shake myself free from their vice-like grip and close the app, my hands beginning to sweat. Surely, Instagram is a safe place. Surely, I can find funny photos to laugh at in peace.

I know now what to expect, but my youthful hopes and dreams still roam free and I decide against my better judgment to take the risk. I open the app. This time, I am not even allowed the temporary calm, the momentary tranquility I am now so desperately hoping to find. The entirety of my explore page is slime video after slime video, the bright colored dyes and star-shaped glitter specs begging me to click, beseeching me to watch the video and to love it. I try to look away, I try to deny the urge but I am a daughter of Eve and the serpent’s temptation is far more than I can bear. My finger slowly makes its way to the screen, my mind begging it to stop but my body refusing to obey. I tap the video.

Just as the girl behind the camera floods the bowl with red slime, squeezing and stirring the squelching substance with an unforgettable adamancy, my mind is flooded with red-hot anger. The emotion is just enough to overpower my nearly-insatiable curiosity, and I turn off my phone. It occurs to me that I am breathing heavily, my hands clammy and my eyes wide. ASMR is inescapable. The internet will not stop until the entire world is satisfied by their gruesome noises and I refuse to let myself continue to fall victim. Alas, there is nothing left for me to do but to reminisce on the days when I could listen to Katy Perry or educate myself on the public opinion without being so criminally bombarded by disgusting sounds and noises.

There was a time, a time which now seems long gone and passed, when it was rude to slurp and squelch in the presence of others. Now it is a trend, a trend which I find to be seeping into my everyday life in the most frustrating and seemingly inescapable of ways. ASMR is gross and unsavory, and I know that someday I will find somebody who agrees with me.


End file.
